District Awards Project Bids;
Billing For PSD Customers
Is Two Months In Arrears by Robin Gordon

Updated on Wednesday*:

Mt. Zion Public Service District board members Shirley
Mace, Sharon Postalwait and Roscoe “Cokey” Gainer held a special meeting
at 6 p.m. last Saturday at West Fork Park, Arnoldsburg.

The first item on the agenda was to receive comments
during a public hearing in regard to the 2009 Mt. Zion
PSD
water extension project. Next item was to act upon a bond resolution
authorizing the financing of the project.

By a show of hands, all 10 residents effected by the
waterline extension district, who attended the meeting, wanted the
project to go through.

According to attorney Tom Whittier, “The bottom line is
that all the people here in the district want the project and think the
financing is O.K.”

The third item on the agenda was to receive advice of
the USDA Rural Development office in regard to the award of bids for the
project.

Whittier said that the board received a letter from
Virginia McDonald, Rural Development area specialist, on Nov. 27:

“A letter which recommends that the district, what it
is, is a letter of concurrence. The district has recommended to USDA
that they award bids in a certain manner. The district cannot award the
bids and has not awarded the bids until USDA gives them concurrence,
that is gives them permission to reward the bids. So, the recommendation
of the USDA, with regard to Contract 1, is that the bid be awarded to
Bruce Allen, Inc., $3,433,065.

“The recommendation of the USDA regarding Contract 2 is
that it be awarded to Mid-Atlantic Storage System, Inc., for $319,600. A
preconstruction conference and a preclosing has been tentatively
scheduled for Dec. 21, 2009, and a final closing will be Dec. 23, 2009.”

The board approved the two recommendations.

The next item on the agenda was to evaluate the
condition of the equipment and records received from secretary/treasurer
Wilma Mace, and to take action necessary to correct any deficiencies.

Shirley Mace reported that she and her daughter, Norma
Collins, went to Wilma Mace’s resident and gathered up boxes and
equipment. She said that everything they had gathered was taken to the
sewer station on Phillip’s Run.

Shirley Mace said, “We started to hook up the computer,
and I told Norma that we don’t need to bother those computers till we
get someone that has been recommended to look at it before we bother it.

“We had a clone made out of it, the computer’s hard
drive, so the original hard drive is secure, but we have a copy of
everything that was on that hard drive in the computer now, that we can
get into it and eventually work with.”

Fanelli Boys, Inc., of Parkersburg is the company that
secured the hard drive.

Shirley Mace said that Wilma Mace was cooperating with
the Mt. Zion PSD.

“We have shut off notices on our electric, our gas, we
have no compensation, no insurance, and it can’t get any worse. We have
paid our electric, we got caught up with our USDA payments, and we are
still working on the rest of it. We don’t have any bills out yet, the
water bills have not been sent out for two months now, but we’re
trying,” said Shirley Mace.

She added, “We have a computer program (Appalachian
Software, Inc.) that all the board and everyone involved will be
schooled on this program so that if one fails, somebody can pick the
ball up and go, and not get in this fix again.”

Whittier said, “One thing Shirley Mace discovered was a
box of unopened mail, indicating that some articles of mail dated two
months ago had not been opened, including bills and payments. The
district is working hard to remedy that and to get cross training in
place so that doesn’t happen again.”

Collins said, “An office for the Mt. Zion PSD has been set up behind the Pit Stop at Mt. Zion.
The owners of the Pit Stop have agreed to temporarily house this office
for free, temporarily. There have been no contracts signed, but there is
a separate office out there just for that.

The board approved the resignation of Wilma Mace.

It was noted that Saundra Ballengee is a temporary
replacement, and the board will legally post and advertise a job
description.